An amateur cooking blog with recipes, reviews, pictures, and hijinks.

Okay! Welcome back to another segment of our Magazine of the Month: Bon Appetit! This time I am pretty sure I got the month right: September.

Yes, it’s from the year 2009. Smart asses.

My photos for these cookies were few and not that attractive, and it’s too bad because the cookies are quite wonderful. I should have tried harder to do them justice and now I’m kicking myself.

Here’s the Bon Appetit photo. My end result does look almost exactly like the cookies in the professional photo, with the exception of my use of white chips rather than chocolate and my dried cherries were a little smaller.

Courtesy of Bon Appetit

I was really pleased with the white chips in the cookie because it gave the cherries a slightly candied flavor. The cookies were thin and crisp and the oatmeal, because it is processed quite finely, lends itself not only to the flavor, but also to a more substantial structure.

I’m aiming to do more of those “in process montages” that I’ve put together in the past, where there will be 4 – 8 small photos all lumped together to show the food as it is being made. I should have done that here, because I was really excited at how this dough is put together:

Food processor, baby!

Yes, nearly the entire thing is done right inside the food processor for the comfort, ease, and pleasure of not being irritated that someone sprayed cookie batter onto three walls, ceiling and both cats by unauthorized mixer speeds.

Position 1 rack in bottom third and 1 rack in top third of oven; preheat to 375°F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper. Blend first 4 ingredients in processor 30 seconds. Add eggs; process to blend. Add next 4 ingredients. Using on/off turns, process until oats are coarsely chopped and mixture is blended. Transfer to large bowl. Mix in cherries and white chips.

This is a fun cookie – it just tastes fun! – and the addition of cherries is a great twist for the fall season. The oats can be processed as finely as you want, so if you aren’t crazy about the texture of oatmeal then you can keep on pulsing until it’s a texture you like. I love oatmeal, so I didn’t mind having some flakes mixed around. The original recipe calls for baking them for 14 minutes, but I found that to be too long. Take your cookie out when the center is still a little pale, as it will continue to bake on the rack/cookie sheet. Baking them until consistently brown throughout will leave them a little hard after they’ve completely cooled. Despite being a flat, crisp cookie, these seem sturdy enough for travel so I’ll probably drop them in my Christmas cookie gift boxes again this year.

Last year I made a cookie for my Christmas boxes that was similar to this (Double Chocolate Cherry Cookies). But you’ll notice that it’s a soft, risen drop cookie – basically, it’s a chocolate chip cookie with extra goober in it. This new version is a flat, crispy oatmeal cookie, but with extra goober in it.

The point is, drop cookies all pretty much hail from a small handful of recipes and they all have slight variations on each other, with different goobers added. If you can make one drop cookie, you can make them all. No exception.

If you like to bake but don’t want to go through the fuss and mess of putting them together, try this out. It’s two more steps than a purchased cookie dough, and ten times more satisfying.

Okay, I don’t know the exact ratio of satisfaction – the above number was just a guess. If it’s that important I can get a math nerd on the case.